30th December – Son of Kuthumbakkam’s soil

We got down at Chengalpattu Junction on the 30th to head to R. Elango’s village, Kuthumbakkam. We had heard that he was one of the rare engineers who had returned to his village to transform it. Hmm… interesting. Sounded to me like the story line of Swades. So we hopped on to the buses and headed to Kutumbakkam. When we reached there this small village girl came up to me and asked, “What is your name?” so I answered. “Nice name, nice to meet you,” she said. All of this communication took place in English. Wow! I was impressed.

R. Elango walked in to greet us. We were all settled inside a brick mortar sort of an auditorium. His face was shining with pride as he started off to tell the story of Kuthumbakkam. Elango entered his village Panchayat in 1996 after quitting his job as a scientist at CSIR (Council of Scientific and Indian Research). Thereafter, he won the elections to become the Sarpanch of Kuthumbakkam, a seven hamlet village; thereby taking the first step in the long journey of change.

The village was rotting with unemployment, illiteracy, liquor problems, domestic violence and many such issues. 60 – 70% men were working hand to mouth on daily wages that then used to be spent on liquor. Women used to get beaten up and population was on the rise. So when Elango was elected, he prepared a five year plan. He tried to incorporate villagers in the process. He explained to them the importance of education, good roads and infrastructure. The villagers pooled in money and the government contributed some amount too. So by the year 2000, the problems of the basic amenities in the village were sorted out.

The next step was to provide sustainable income to the villagers and of empowering women. Elango fought the government to employ only the local people for any infrastructure construction which happened in the village. So, while infrastructure got a boost in the village, the locals got employment too. Elango, who is inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, believes in self reliance, which he feels is more sustainable. He has converted his village into a self running economic zone. The villagers produce everything that they need from local resources and sell surplus produce outside their villages. The women of the village are organized in several SHGs (Self-Help Groups). They not only earn a decent living today, but have also earned self respect. “Even if they (men) drink, they dare not beat women,” Elango proudly said.

Hmmm… interesting. But I was not very comfortable with one thing which Elango said. He said that he doesn’t encourage ‘outside’ products to come in and establish their market. If he would, his economic model was at a risk of falling apart. His village products which are produced and consumed by the same villagers would face market competition. I am a little right leaning person. Maybe because I am from a city which is heart of India’s capitalism or maybe because I was a management student. I don’t agree completely with Elango’s protectionist policy. But he wasn’t wrong too. The top down approach hadn’t worked for Kuthumbakkam much. The benefits of India’s ‘development’ were not reaching its villages. A socialist self sustaining economy was his answer to numerous problems stunting the village growth.

Today, after 15 years of coming to back to his roots, R. Elango’s Kuthumbakkam has schools, paved roads, brick houses, empowered women, and a self sustaining village. Though the scalability of the socialist and protectionist economic model is debatable, no one can deny that R. Elango has truly made a difference. I’ll always remember one thing that he thundered, “Be a part of the people to change things; don’t act like ‘great’ outsiders.”

29th December – Finding a Vision

Madurai was our next stop. Madurai, the temple town of the south India, is home to 2500 year old Meenakshi temple. As our yatra wasn’t a leisure trip but an entrepreneurial one, we headed directly to the yatra’s next social enterprise; Aravind Eye care. As the bus made its way through the roads of Tamil Nadu, I noticed that the walls on the sides of the pavement were either painted with ‘larger than life’ political figures or plastered with huge Tamil movie posters.

Story of Aravind Eye Care – Giving Vision to the Bottom of the Pyramid
“Intelligence and capability are not enough, there must be a joy of doing something beautiful” –the philosophy with which late Dr. G. Venkataswamy the founded of Aravind Eye Care. After Dr. V’s retirement from the army at the age of 58, he thought he still had much more to do with his life. Thus, Aravind Eye care was born with only 11 beds in 1978. “Today, Aravind Eye Care has five eye hospitals and 33 primary eye care centres, which cater to 70% of Tamil Nadu’s, 8% of our country's and 3% of the world’s eye patients,” Dr Arvind from Aravind Eye Care.

But this is not just a success story. The business model it’s run on is what is striking and sets it apart from any other eye care hospital in the world. World statistics show that 80% of the blindnesses are curable. Aravind Eye Care was started with a vision to end needless blindness. Dr. V observed that the blind in the rural and poorer parts of Tamil Nadu lost vision in the later part of their lives due to their inaccessibility to Cataract treatment. He started catering to the needs of that segment of the market where healthcare had never reached. And, the hospital doesn’t charge the poor at all!! 60% of the cataract operations performed in the hospital are free of cost. The hospital works on the cross subsidy model. 40% of the patients, who can afford the treatment, pay, and the rest don’t. A paid patient takes care of himself and one more patient in addition to providing a little surplus to the hospital.

Surprised? Not much? Okay, I’ll add one more fact that makes Aravind Eye Care different. The patients don’t come to the hospital to be treated. The hospital goes out to them. The eye care centres moves from one village to another, to set up rural eye camps which select people who need treatment. About 30 camps are conducted in a week. These camps reach out to almost 6, 76, 000 villagers every year! These villagers are then picked up by hospital and taken to the hospital for the treatment. They are transported back into their villages in two days after the operation. All of this is free of cost. Still, Aravind Eye Care has three times returns on investment!

You would be wondering how this is possible. Aravind Eye Care’s workforce constitutes of 90% women. Most of these women are only high school pass who have been trained by Aravind Eye Care in eye healthcare. These are the women who run eye camps in villages and also work in the hospital. Only the surgery is taken care of by the doctors. “Aravind can work without doctors but not without mid level workers,” Dr. Arvind stated in the presentation. Aravind Eye Care trains about 300+ high school girls and recruits them into the hospital chain. So, cheap but effective labour is the mantra!

When Dr. V started this hospital, he wanted to replicate the McDonalds franchise model i.e. Mass production, consistent good quality and a self sustaining model. And that’s exactly what he has done, only at a much lower cost!

28th December – Touching the High Seas

Our yatra reached Kanyakumari in the early hours of the 28th. All of us were informed through the PA system to wear our yatri t-shirts. So, 400 yatris in blue and white were ready to march to Vivekanand Rock Memorial. I must say the crowd management team did a great job in directing 400 yatris for a two hour walk. I was glad that we were walking to the tip of India. It took us about an hour to reach Sannathi Street where we joined a really long queue to catch a ferry to the memorial. Everything was written in Tamil, all over the streets, on the shops and trust me on people’s faces too. So difficult to converse with them.

Due to the large number of yatris, the queue got mixed up and one queue broke into two. In frustration the guard blurted out something which didn’t make sense at all. He looked at me and said, “You Delhi people” Such anti-north Indian sentiment! Surely he could beat Raj Thackeray hands down! I was going to strike back something in defence but before I could, he was taken away by another guard who I guess sensed trouble.

We kept on moving till we finally reached the edge of the sea. Fishermen had parked their colourful boats near the sea shore. Wind was blowing over us as I tried to stand steady and take a few photographs. The sky was blue and the sea matched the colour brilliantly. I can’t even call it a sea because it was a mixture of Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea. Breathtakingly beautiful and strikingly calm. We jumped into the ferry to reach the Vivekanand Rock Memorial. As the ferry made its way, the 40 year old structure came into sight. Swami Vivekanand, in the end of 1892, had meditated on the same rock on which the memorial has been built. To commemorate the great philosopher, who is said to have attained enlightenment on the rock.

The memorial was majestic. There is a temple devoted to Swami Vivekanand and a temple devoted to Shripad Parai. The rock is believed to have been blessed with the touch of Goddess Devi Kumari (Kanyakumari)’s feet. From the memorial you could see the three colours of the sea merging with each other. The atmosphere at the rock memorial was truly soul touching. I don’t know whether it was because of the meeting of three seas or the bright blue sky or just the wind blowing in my ears.

27th December – Feeling the Pulse of the Yatra Part II

Story of Paul and Sabriye – “Dream Big”

A small German girl lost her eyesight at the age of 12. She waited for darkness to come but it never did. Instead her life became more colourful. “Blindness made me curious, I tried finding new ways to do things” she shared. As a growing child, she too had dreams… to travel the world and learn new languages. But society wouldn’t let her chase her dreams so she ventured out alone. After Red Cross disagreed to take her to Tibet, she left for the country alone.

Sabriye along with her partner Paul, opened the first school for the blind in Tibet in 1997. But before Paul joined in, Sabriye had roamed Tibet and witnessed the most appalling social customs; of keeping blind children locked in dark rooms, of tying them up to furniture so they can’t move out of the home! As Sabriye spoke to Tibetans, she found out that locals thought of blindness as a curse to the family. So as to save the family name, they hid the children inside the cellars and rooms. That’s when Sabriye decided to open a school for blind children in Tibet. Not only to make them self reliant but also to give them a sense of dignity. I can still hear her voice echoing in the brick hall in which we were sitting, “I am blind, SO WHAT?!” She wanted to give them a feeling of pride and confidence. To make them believe that they are not a burden to the society and their family, they are as capable as anyone else is.

To give her dream shape, she directly approached the Chinese government office requesting for some money. And guess what? Her broken Chinese and belief in her dream got her the money! Sabriye met Paul in Tibet. She smiled and said, “He is my DREAM partner.” Paul was backpacker in Tibet when he met Sabriye and heard of her dream. He quit his job to join her. Sabriye shared, “He is the only person I met who didn’t laugh on my dream.” Together they taught and trained blind children in Tibet. Today, after 12 years of setting up the school, they have managed to change the attitude of Tibetans towards blind children. But more than that, they have changed the attitude of the blind towards themselves. Sabriye shared a story of a small boy who was being mocked by a few teens on the road. The kid turned to them and said, “I can read and write, can you?” – This shut the teens up! Paul & Sabriye left the school some years back to migrate to India. “Success is there when we are not needed anymore,” Sabriye declared. They have left it to be run by blind themselves.

In India, Paul and Sabriye run the International Institute of Social Entrepreneurs. They train students in skilled based production; like weaving, cheese making, carpentry etc to make them self reliant and independent. They select students from all over the world, ranging from places like war zones, under developed countries, the discriminated blacks and the blind. The selection criterion is simple. They should have the zeal in them to make the wrong into right. “It’s a dream factory,” in Paul’s words.

The audience was captivated. The power, energy and force in Sabriye’s voice held us. She was proud of herself and her dreams. She said, “You don’t need vision but A VISION.” Looking at her I felt, nothing is impossible to achieve, no dream is too big to come true. What you need is just the determination and belief in yourself and your dream. Everything else can be taken care of.

27th December – Feeling the Pulse of the Yatra Part I

I got up at around 5.00 am on the 27th for my branding duties. The train was still and apparently standing on some station. And the train was in complete darkness. So most of us who had got up had to go and take a bath on the station bathroom!! It was quite an adventure being armed with a dozen things in one hand and waiting in a queue for girls to quickly come out. In this entire time pass, I missed the branding duties. So to make up, I became part of the crowd management team and ended up losing my voice!

As the light dawned, I realized I was on the Kochuveli station of Kerela. At around 7 we got onto the buses to head to IISE (Indian institute of social entrepreneurs). There we were supposed to meet the first two of our role models; Mr. G. Vijay Raghavan, the founder of India’s first IT Park as well as Paul and Sabriye, the founders of IISE.

Story behind Technopark – “Don’t Let Yourself Get Pushed”
A 50 acre Technopark was started in the year 1991 in Kerela, a state considered unfriendly for business ventures. The obvious reason behind this notion was the ruling communist government. Today, after a lot of hardships, government bureaucracy and union troubles, Vijay Raghavan’s Technopark is spread over 500 acres accommodating 150 IT and ITES companies, proving employment to 20000 IT professionals.

So how did he do this? What was his plan to combat and fight the government? Actually, nothing!! He didn’t fight the government at all. He worked along with it. Technopark is a Public private partnership with the Kerala Government. When Kerala’s Chief Minister E. K. Nayanar wasn’t too convinced about the Technopark project, Raghavan took him to the Silicon Valley to explain to him the benefits of an IT park. Raghavan actually managed to convince a communist leader, who in March, 1991, went on to lay the foundation stone of his dream project! But troubles were not over. The communist government lost power in late 1991 and the state heads changed. Technopark was off the new government’s radar. Raghavan had to start from the scratch once again. He met up with the new CM to make a new presentation. He was once again successful in convincing the CM, who ultimately ended up sanctioning Rs. 16 crore for the project!

In all the setting up, he faced a lot of union issues. There were people who wanted him to hire more employees. He faced pressure from government officials who wanted him to hire ‘their’ people. Politicians wanted him to give advertisements in newspapers. Raghavan had troubles from the electricity board that wouldn’t provide electricity till he paid a reasonable amount of ‘fees’. He fought all of them and he fought them smartly. Raghavan left us with an advice which I guess will stay with me forever, “Don’t let yourself get pushed.”

26th December – It’s a long train, it’s my home

We still had a day to reach Kochuveli, our first destination. I took advantage of a less packed day to roam about in the train. Phew! The train was so long. I mean 16 bogies and I was in the 12th one. Was very tired after a long walk from 12th to zero and back! I took a trip to the pantry to exchange mineral water bottles. And we wouldn’t get new bottles till we returned our old empty plastic bottles. Smart wasn’t it? To go to the pantry, I had to pass the AC chair car and the boys’ bogie… Dude! Guy’s compartments stink. I guess that’s why they were red faced and embarrassed seeing us girls going through their side of the home. Other than moving around and meeting people, nothing much happened on 26th except for a volunteer meet. I decided to be a part of the branding team to put up banners on buses. The tricky part of being a volunteer was that you’d have to wake up earlier than the usual! Don’t know how I was going to manage that.

25th December – Lifeline of the train

I woke up on the 25th of December as a yatri to the music of Swades and Rang De Basanti. No no, the songs were not my alarm tones but TJY’s wake up call from the Public Announcement (PA) System. Yawn… I got down from my berth to head to the ‘bathroom set up’ in the last bogie. I was very curious to know how TJY team had set the whole bathroom thing up. And this is what I saw. A queue of a dozen yatris geared up with clothes and soaps waiting to fill half a bucket of cold water. The bathing ‘room’ was just a 2 x 4 feet aluminum box! In the moving train with patriotic songs as ambient sound, the cold water bath was so enjoyable. It was an experience of a lifetime which I was to experience everyday!

After all of us were energized with heavy breakfast by the enthusiastic catering team, the first session of the yatra started in the AC chair car. The AC chair cars did the dual job of being the meeting point of all the yatris and also the presentation room during the yatra. It had huge glass windows on both sides that gave a panoramic view of the Indian heartland passing by. I saw the green fields of Maharashtra’s Konkan region while the Tata Jagriti Yatra Team started with the introduction and details of the exciting and thrilling journey that we were about to have.

Shashank Mani Tripathi, the chairman of Tata Jagriti Yatra and Rewati Prabhu, board member of Tata Jagriti Yatra, put the objective of yatra which is enterprise led development into words. According to them, the middle India which earns about Rs. 40 to Rs. 120 per day should be converted from job seekers to job creators. According to them, this conversion leads to more wealth creation and development. It kind of made sense to me. Bottom up approach is better than top down approach as till now the trickle down approach hasn’t worked wonders for the rural India for sure.

With that thought in mind, I along with my group mates, headed for our compartments. As each group was made up of 15 strangers, who came from different parts of the country with different academic and social backgrounds, we were given the task of sharing our life experiences with the help of a lifeline chart. The next two hours revealed a whole lot of interesting facts about my team mates. I was kind of intimidated. The funniest part was that they all said they didn’t believe in the current education system but most of them stressed on their percentages! My group had an architect, an HR professional, a management student, a few engineers, a social worker, an IT professional, an environmentalist, an IPS aspirant from states like Haryana, Delhi, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh!! That’s why I called my train ‘the microscopic view of India.’

Yaaron Chalo!

As I start to write down my yatra as a yatri 2009, many images come rushing to my mind. The first day… The flickering images of the registration process that was taking place in the early hours of 24th December.

24th December – Wheels of change set in motion

Hundreds of yatris were moving in and out with their luggage at Ravindra Natya Mandir where all of us met for the first time. In all the confusion of loading the buses and tagging the luggage, yatris were exchanging their names and backgrounds to get acquainted with each other. Personally, I was overloaded with names, qualifications and dreams. There was too much happening in too little time. But as days went by on the yatra, too much happening in too little time became a norm. I can still remember the night on Mumbai Central station. The Tata Jagriti Yatra train which we were so excited to board got stuck with some problem at 11.30 pm on 24th night. The wait for a few minutes turned into hours. And what an adventure it was! I have heard that all the strugglers who have made it in life have spent at least one night on Bombay railway station. So this was my chance to glory. A night well spent. Singing Christmas carols, patriotic songs in the middle of the night with 399 strangers was a totally new feeling… the train finally arrived at 4.00 am in the morning thanks to the Indian railways! The wheels of change were set in motion carrying 400 youth across the length and breath of the country covering 9300 kilometers to reach 13 destinations…

Tata Jagriti Yatra - Yaaron Chalo!

The yatra started on 24th of December, 2009, taking 400 youth across 13 cities covering 9300 kilometers over the span of 18 days to meet exceptional Indians and see the real India. Too many words in one sentence, right? Yeah, that was the case with us too. Just so many incredible things happened to all the yatris and me, that I guess it’s a little difficult to pen everything down. But I’ll still try.


I don’t think I need to mention that it was a memorable experience. That’s obvious. But while I come back and scratch beneath the obvious, I see many more things that are not visible in the photographs.


Everyday when I woke up, I had something to look forward to. Each day brought to me role models to meet and their institutions to visit. These individuals have done exceptional work. Transforming liquor torn villages to self sustaining economies, setting up a school for blind children in a place where blindness was considered a curse, serving a million children everyday through mid days meal programmes and many more such extraordinary causes. And mind you, most of these were not charity based organizations but sustainable and scalable enterprises. Their confidence and faith despite struggles and strives taught me, that no dream is unachievable and no problem is insurmountable. If your intensions are good and your conviction strong, then there is nothing that can ever stop you!



Every city was different and every state displayed something unique. With each state, the languages changed, the landscape outside the window changed. We started with Maharashtra’s Konkan region and moved to Kerala’s backwaters and ended with Gujarat’s salt city. On the yatra I saw Ganga’s immense power and Rajasthan vast deserts. When we started off from Mumbai, the weather was warm. Then we moved to the pleasant Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. But as we headed north, the cold started gripping us. I still remember bathing in the ice cold water in Delhi! This is India, it is huge, it is beautiful and it is multi dimensional.



And what do I say about my fellow yatris! Each one of them – a treasure of dreams and hopes. Each one of them had a story to tell, an experience to share. Yatris came from all parts of the country with different social, educational and professional backgrounds. There were doctors, architects, social workers, sportsmen, lawyers, environmentalists, educationists, media professionals, and obviously engineers! A Lot of engineers. Each yatri was a pool of energy and enthusiasm. Being a yatri on that 16 bogie train was a journey I am glad I experienced. The moving train, the mind boggling landscapes and 399 yatris there with me… Yaaron Chalo!

I’ll be putting up my day to day account soon.